The Red and the Black commentary

The new X-Files Mythology DVD set, Colonization, comes out September 27. It contains damn near every classic Krycek episode: "Patient X", "The Red and the Black", "The End", "S.R. 819", "Two Fathers", "One Son", and the short scenes he's in in "The Sixth Extinction II: Amor Fati."

But I thought you might want a sneak peek at the all-new commentary with Chris Carter for "The Red and the Black," which doesn't even have commentary on the regular Season 5 set...

In the Colonization set you get commentary on "Patient X", (Kim Manners, not available before); "TRatB"; "Two Fathers", (Kim Manners, not available before); "One Son", (Frank Spotnitz, not available before); "Closure", (Kim Manners, not available before); and Season 8's "Within" with Robert Patrick, if you believe there *was* an X-Files after the end of Season 7.

Unfortunately, a *huge* opportunity was missed by allowing Chris Carter to give the commentary on TRatB, because aside from an astromical number of "ums" and "uhs" there's pretty much nothing we haven't heard before, and goddammit, there is *tons* of information that could have been shared, especially on TRatB. *sigh*

Anyway, here is the kissing scene, transcribed by my little ol' typing fingers. Stuff in brackets [ ] are my thoughts, and stuff in parentheses ( ) are what's occurring on screen.

(Before the scene, and as Krycek bursts into Mulder's apartment, Chris Carter is speaking about how often the actors stick to the script) ...the actors were very faithful to the dialogue as written -- very little changes, very little change, very little improv, and uh we just didn't have time for it, we were always on such a tight schedule, that there just wasn't time to change...and they were really good about helping us to tell these mythology stories because the information as it's partialed [sic] out is so important. I think there *is* improv in this scene, though, which is why I mention it. I think David Duchovny adds his own flavor and touch here in an interesting way. I think some of the funnier lines are his, added, on the spot. He added a line in an upcoming scene with Scully. David always made things funnier than they were written on the page, because he's one of the funniest people I know.

(Next Krycek goes into his line, "Resist or serve...") Sometimes I think the choice of mine to keep these eyelines tight -- especially in a scene like this -- was maybe the wrong choice, but it may of had to do with the fact that we were like on a two-walled set here But This scene could have been, I think, dimensionalized [sic] by choosing different camera angles. Probably was more of a function of time and not being able to spend the extra time to get the wider shots, or the 2-shot in this case, which would have been more interesting.

[CC then goes on to talk about how often Mulder's apartment was always being broken into during this very important scene, fer Chrissakes, not bothering to mention Krycek's motivations, nor why this short visitation from a man who is Mulder's nemesis essentially changes Mulder's entire outlook for the rest of the season and gets him back into the fight]

(Krycek kisses Mulder) I think that was Nick Lea's idea -- I think he always secretly wanted to kiss David Duchovny. (Krycek offers his farewell in Russian: "Good luck to you, my friend") Nick Lea does not speak Russian, he learned the Russian for the episode, but he was good, believable. He sold it. (Next scene: Mulder is sittin' and thinkin', about "the usual, destiny, fate, how to throw a curveball") That's David's line.